House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

  She can feel the pain like a vise around her heart, squeezing her bone-dry, squeezing out whatever hope she has left, which right now is precious damn little. A life of being alone, of loneliness, stretching to the horizon of her hopes.

  Abruptly pulling off I-605 at Rosecrans Blvd., she drives to the nearest park, where she gets out of her car and sits down on a park bench and cries, tears flowing unchecked down her cheeks, as she had wanted to but couldn’t when she watched her daughters disappear into their school and out of her life again.

  Crying isn’t a cure, but it helps. Cranking up the Rooster, she gets back on the 605 and continues south, into Orange County.

  One person knows where she’s going. She didn’t want to tell anyone, but she thought somebody had better know, in case something ugly happens to her. Again.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” he told her. “You were putting this behind you.” He sounded mad—and worried.

  She knew that, she responded, but she had to do it, it couldn’t be helped. Something about her nature.

  “Be careful,” he warned her then. “Don’t do anything rash.”

  “I won’t,” she promised him.

  Finally: “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No,” she replied. “I have to do this on my own.”

  So that’s where she is now—on her own.

  Wes Gillroy isn’t living at the address listed on his bail record. There’s three weeks’ worth of junk mail in his box, and a cobweb woven over a corner of the door is intact.

  “He moved out a month ago,” the next-door neighbor in his small two-story apartment complex, a young woman sporting purple hair, five earrings in her left ear, plus a nose earring and yet another in her bared navel, tells Kate. She didn’t flinch a bit, looking at the battered face protected by the sun shield.

  That’s interesting, Kate thinks. The court especially would find it so, since Gillroy is obliged to let them know where he’s living. She knows this address is considered current by the Santa Barbara County Superior Court, because she’d looked it up in the county records before heading out this morning. If—make that “when”—she locates Gillroy, she’ll pass on the advice that he’d better clean up his act in that regard, or he’ll find his negligent ass back in the Santa Barbara County jail.

  She will find him—she isn’t going back to Santa Barbara until she does—unless he’s skipped the state, which will open a whole other kettle of fish that’s out of her league.

  “Is that two-timing bastard in trouble again?” the woman asks.

  “Not from me.”

  “You the law?” the girl asks suspiciously. It’s midday and she’s barely dressed; a thin kimono, open, bra and panties underneath. The smell of incense wafts out of her apartment. She’s probably just smoked her first joint of the day, Kate guesses. And she was balling Wes and isn’t happy that he cut out on her.

  “No. I’m working for his lawyer,” Kate lies. “I need to talk to him about his upcoming court date. Did he leave a forwarding address?”

  The woman’s expression tells Kate she isn’t buying that line. “I don’t know, I ain’t the post office,” she replies. “He’s an old surfer. Old surfers never die, they only blow out their knees. Try The Wedge,” she says curtly before slamming her door in Kate’s face.

  Gillroy’s moving and not informing the court is par for the course—no big deal, really. As long as he shows up when he’s supposed to, no one will give a shit. She can track him down, she’s confident of that.

  She wants to find Gillroy because she wants a victory, right fucking now. Locate him and put the fear of God into him, so he’ll help her discover who Frank Bascomb’s silent partner was: who put the money up to hire Rusty, charter the boat, buy the marijuana, and then pay Wes’s bail. She knows that when she finds out who that person is she’ll know who had Frank murdered, and tried to have her killed as well.

  She cruises up Pacific Coast Highway, the sun burning high in her window, turning off at Newport Blvd., which segues into Balboa Blvd. Off to her right the ocean burns in the sun. She parks in West Jetty Park and walks down towards the water. The sand is hot under her bare feet and she starts picking up energy, feeling it radiating through her body, healing all her cares and woes. If it wasn’t for this stupid face guard and the broken cheek, she’d plunge in, catch some good waves, be reinvigorated, ready to take on the world again.

  In her dreams.

  The waves funnel through the slot, crash into the jetty, rise up, and break again, thundering onto the shore. She stands on the beach, transfixed, watching. She isn’t ready for this, wouldn’t be even if her cheek and everything else was completely healed. This ocean is the real thing, a living beast, just huge waves, the biggest she’s ever seen by far, and the ferocity of how they break is scary. She’s seen movies of big waves—Sunset Beach on the north shore of Oahu, places in the South Pacific—but she’s never actually laid eyes on waves this size before.

  She could never go in here—she isn’t strong enough. These waves would lift her up and break her like a twig, a toothpick.

  She walks to about thirty feet from the water’s edge and sits on the hard sand, watching the pattern of the break. A big wave crests and two surfers catch it, stretching their bodies out on their body boards and whipping along the top, riding the curl, then plunging under as it breaks against the wall, kicking and paddling furiously to keep from being picked up in the backwash and being slammed into the sandy floor.

  No fucking way.

  Down the beach about a hundred yards a lone surfer paddles out on his board, waiting and catching the break between waves. He obviously knows what he’s doing—in a few minutes he’s out past the breakers, lying on his board, waiting for a big one.

  Something about him draws her attention. She stands up so she can watch him better.

  The surfer doesn’t have to wait long for his wave.

  The curl starts way to his left, building and building, coming with a rush and a roar, bearing down on him like a fast-moving freight train. The wave crests and he catches it right at the top of the curl, pushing forward with such speed and force she can see, even from shore, that it almost tears the board right out of his hands. She watches as the force of the wave begins sucking him in. The surfer is fighting against gravity, his whole body contorting on the small board, twisted and bent, the wave is breaking fiercely against the jetty up ahead of him, he’s diving down at the last minute but he’s sucked under anyway—he’s trapped, she realizes, he can’t escape the force of the rushing water, the second, rebounding wave is going to catch him and slam him into the sand, the sand hard-packed as concrete, it’s going to shred him, break him into smithereens. They’ll put what body parts they can find in a small basket and there will be room left over.

  She’s never seen anybody die in the ocean but she’s heard stories.

  The surfer flushes out under the last crashing of water against shore and slides against the sand, hard, coming up for air, the water receding behind him, going back out to sea. As he picks up his board he turns and faces her.

  She recognizes him from his mug shot.

  Shaking the water from his body, Wes Gillroy picks up his board and walks across the beach to the parking lot. Kate follows him, not worrying that he might see her. He doesn’t know who she is.

  He jumps into a ’55 Chevy Nomad, a classic surfer’s car, Kate notes, and drives off. She follows. They cruise through the streets until he parks in an alley next to a surf shop. Leaving his board in the station wagon, he disappears inside. She waits a minute, until she feels cool and calm. Then she goes in.

  “Wes Gillroy.” She calls his name, a bit loudly for the size of the place.

  He’s dressed now: baggy shorts, T-shirt, flops. He looks up from behind the counter, where he’s tallying some sales slips. A prototypical aging surfer, now that she can see him up close, skin like leather, washed-out blue eyes ringed with crow’s feet.

  “Yes?” he ask
s, blinking and squinting against the sun through the door behind her, silhouetting her in backlight. Women her age don’t usually come into surf shops like this one. Wes would figure her to be somebody’s mother come in to buy her son or daughter a cool present, to be hip with her kid.

  “I’ll be right with you.” He turns his attention back to his paperwork, temporarily dismissing her.

  She looks around. Nice place, must do good business, although at the moment she’s the only customer in the place. Getting on to happy hour.

  A woman emerges from the back of the store. Striking-looking: her hair bleached white, her figure almost a parody, it’s so contoured—huge bust, tiny waist, hard tight behind.

  It’s Morgan what’s-her-face, Kate realizes with a jolt—Rusty’s girlfriend, the other woman on the boat along with Laura. Laura’s description fits her to a T.

  “How can I help you?” she asks Kate in a high-pitched voice that goes perfectly with the Dolly Parton figure.

  “You’re Morgan?” Kate asks in return.

  “Yes.” She looks at Kate. “Do I know you?”

  Two birds with one stone. Not only won’t this be a wasted trip, but she’s won the bonus prize as well.

  “No,” Kate responds. “But I know you … rather, who you are.” She takes one of her cards from her wallet, lays it on the counter so that Morgan can see it.

  Morgan picks it up, reads it. “Private investigator? Santa Barbara?”

  Wes snaps to, looking up at Kate with a start. He takes the card from Morgan, looks at it, digesting the information, then at Kate again, this time paying attention to her.

  “Who are you?” he asks suspiciously.

  “What it says on there,” she tells him, pointing to her card. “Laura Sparks is my client,” she adds. “I’ve been looking for you, Wes.”

  “What for?”

  “Information. I think you can help me get it. Maybe you can help, too,” she says to Morgan.

  Wes throws up his hands. “Sorry, lady. I’m looking at ten plus in a state pen, so I’m not talking to anyone.” He hands her back her card. “Take a hike,” he tells her rudely.

  She puts the card back into her purse. “Fine by me,” she shrugs nonchalantly, snapping the purse shut. “You don’t have to talk to me. You can chat with the local sheriff instead.” She pivots as if to go.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he calls out, stopping her as she knew he would.

  She turns back to him, a bit dramatically for effect, for him and Morgan both. Morgan has retreated two steps behind Wes and is looking intently at Kate, her head cocked like a bird’s.

  “You’re in violation of your bail, ace,” she tells Wes. “You didn’t let the court up in Santa Barbara know you’d moved. That’s a major no-no. Tomorrow this time you’re going to be sitting in the Santa Barbara slammer eating Spam and eggs with a spoon.” She turns on her heel again. “See you in court.”

  “Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute!” He comes running out from behind the counter, steps in front of her, blocking her exit. “You don’t have to tell on me, damn it!”

  “I’m a state-licensed investigator,” she says. “If I know a law’s been broken, I have to report it whether I want to or not.”

  “Look,” he says, pleading, “I was going to. It was a couple of days ago, I hadn’t gotten around to it, that’s all.”

  “According to your next-door neighbor, it was a month ago. The one you were balling,” she adds quietly, so Morgan won’t overhear.

  He blanches, glancing over his shoulder at Morgan, who’s staring at the two of them.

  “All right. All right.” His tone is contrite now, his demeanor subdued. “What do you want from me?”

  “Somebody hired you and Rusty. Who was it?”

  He blinks. “Frank Bascomb. I thought that was common knowledge.”

  She shakes her head impatiently. “I don’t mean Bascomb. Who paid for the whole shooting match—the money man? The same person who made your bail, I’ll bet.”

  “I can’t help you with that. It was Rusty’s deal—he set everything up with Bascomb. I was another set of arms.”

  “What about your bail? Somebody put up a million-dollar security to spring you.”

  “Don’t know.”

  “That’s hard to believe, Wes.” She smiles. “I think we should do this by the book after all. I’ll get in touch with the local authorities and you can deal with them however you have to.”

  He grabs her by the arm. “Don’t!”

  “Then stop bullshitting me.”

  “I’m not, I swear. I’m sitting in my cell the next morning, they come get me, take me to court, I’m told my bail’s been made and I’m free to go until my trial.”

  “And nothing was mentioned to you about who made it?”

  “No. I even asked the bondsman. He smiled at me like a Cheshire cat and said I had friends in high places, which I didn’t get, since I don’t know anyone up in Santa Barbara.”

  “Someone didn’t want you around,” she says, her mind spinning. “Sitting in a jail cell and thinking about talking.”

  “I guess.” He shrugs. “Except I didn’t have anything worth talking about. Still don’t.”

  “Whoever paid for your bond doesn’t know that. They think you knew who the moneyman was, like Frank and Rusty must have.”

  “I never thought of that,” he says, thinking about it now.

  “Which means they still think it,” she continues.

  “They’re thinking wrong. I swear.”

  “I believe you,” she tells him. “But whoever had Frank murdered in his cell doesn’t.”

  He whistles, a low breath of air. “That was a hit?” he asks, in a tone of voice that says “Don’t tell me the answer.”

  “I’m convinced of it,” she says.

  “So I might be in line,” he says.

  “I’d say the odds are better than even.”

  He looks at her as if seeing the scars for the first time. “Somebody did a number on you. Was there a connection to this?”

  She nods.

  “Motherfucker!”

  Morgan comes up to them. “What’s going on?” she asks. “Wes, you look like you just saw a ghost.”

  “He did,” Kate tells her. “His own. Look. I think I can help you. But you’ve got to help me.”

  “What’s this all about?” Morgan asks again.

  “Rusty,” Wes tells her. “And Frank Bascomb.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth forms a perfect circle.

  “How do you think I can help you?” Wes asks Kate.

  “I need to find out who’s behind all this,” she says. “If I can trace the money I’ll know who set it all up—the dope deal, Frank getting killed in jail, everything.”

  Wes shakes his head. “But I already told you …”

  “Maybe there’s some information sitting out there,” she says. “Some documentation, something on paper that Rusty would have had. He was the one with experience, who would have known who to buy the grass from, where, all of that. The money person would have had to have dealt with him, I’d bet on it.”

  “Something at his house?” Morgan interjects.

  “Maybe. Do you know where it is?”

  Wes shoots Morgan a blistering look, but she ignores him.

  “I live in it,” Morgan says. “I was living with Rusty.” She hesitates, blushing like a girl caught playing with herself. “Wes lives there, too—now.”

  Stands to reason, Kate thinks. Besides, who is she to pass judgment on anyone else? “Now I understand why you didn’t want anyone to know where you’d moved to,” she says to Wes.

  “Yeah,” he answers, dully.

  “Rusty kept his shit all over the place,” Morgan volunteers. “He was a world-class paranoid, which he was right to be, given all-what he was into. He even kept some of his records in the bathroom closet; he figured no one in their right mind would ever look for shit in a shitter.” She laughs self-consciously, nervou
s as hell.

  The shop closes in an hour. They’ll meet Kate at the house at seven; they give her detailed directions.

  “I’ll be real angry if you’re not there,” Kate warns Wes.

  “Don’t worry,” he promises her. “We’ll be there—both of us.”

  An hour to kill.

  She walks along the sidewalk, past a local bar. A beer would be nice, help her kill the time. But alcohol’s the last thing she needs to indulge in, she has to be clean, sober, and alert. After it’s all done, on the way home.

  As she’s about to get into her car and head out towards the address they gave her she thinks of one thing that could be important: she’s going to the house of a man who was a principal in a huge drug bust, shot and killed by the police, his accomplice is living in the house now, and she may remove information that shouldn’t be in her possession, if she finds what she’s looking for. She should not be in that house; but since she’s going to be, she definitely should not leave any sign that she’s been there, in case it ever comes up.

  She ducks into a Thrifty’s Drug Store and makes a beeline for the section where they sell Ace bandages and knee braces, snatches a package of latex gloves from the shelf—the type dental technicians use when they’re cleaning a patient’s teeth. Whether or not she finds what she’s looking for—an admitted longshot, particularly since she isn’t sure what precisely it is she’s looking for—no one except Wes and Morgan will ever know she was there, which is a chance she’ll have to take.

  She gets lost finding the place. She’s three freeway exits past the proper one before she realizes she’s gone too far, and has to double back through traffic.

  The house is on a block of small post-World War II tracts bordering a low bluff overlooking the ocean. She cruises down the street, searching for the address Wes and Morgan gave her.

  It’s dark now, the moon rising low across the hills to the east.

  A dim yellow mosquito bulb flickers over the front door. Inside, a few lights shine through the windows, which are covered with old-fashioned curtains. Probably belonged to the original owners, she guesses, and Rusty never bothered modernizing the place.